FernFolio

Prior to this year, I had never managed to get tickets for the Silver Birch and Red Maple Awards.  Every year, I would call the ticket box office several times and get a busy signal and then, before I ever got through to a sales person, would learn that all the tickets were sold.  But this year the box office opened on the morning of my annual medical appointment, and I happened to be home and online when the tickets went on sale.  I purchased 12 tickets for Red Maple and 17 tickets for Silver Birch Fiction, and literately screamed for joy when I got confirmation of the purchases by e-mail.
Students were encourage to fill out a ballot for each Red Maple and Silver Birch book they read and, a couple of weeks ago, I drew out names and invited students to “skip school with me” and attend the awards at Harbourfront.  Better still, I received an e-mail from my friend Joel Krentz at Henry Hudson asking whether I might know of two intermediate students interested in introducing author Matthew Skelton, who wrote Endymion Spring, and I answered a second general e-mail and was invited to ask two junior students to introduce author Deborah Ellis, nominated for Jakeman.  So the weeks leading up to the awards were busy ones, running around chasing down permission forms, and meeting over lunch hours and during quiet moments in the afternoon to write introduction speeches.
Nathan and Lucy both did a wonderful job of presenting their authors and seemed far more poised and calm than I was, nervously biting my knuckles in the audience.  Isabel and EJ were terrific spear carriers, patiently standing throughout the awards ceremonies holding signs with their authors’ names.

The Red Maple awards, held on Wednesday, May 21st at Harbourfront, were great, despite the fact that it was so cold that I went and purchase two sweatshirts for students and borrowed a wind jacket for a third.  After the ten nominated authors were introduced, Eric Walters was awarded this year’s Red Maple prize for Safe as Houses.  Endymion Spring, Iain Lawrence’s Gemini Summer, and Kenneth Oppel’s Darkwing were named Red Maple Honour Books.  Following the awards, and a brief sojourn into the glass-blowing studio at York Quay, because it’s interesting and warm, students were free to visit the various activities and workshops presented as part of the Red Maple awards.  Several Fern students attended the book-making workshop and others won book prizes at ring toss and bean bag toss events.  A number of students lined up to meet their favourite Red Maple authors and get an autograph or two.  I had my hand mehndied by a wonderful 12-year old artist from Henry Hudson whose skill was a pleasure to behold.  We all stopped in for hot chocolate at Tim Horton’s on our way to the streetcar stop.  A cold, blustery day weather-wise, but warm and fun-filled in all of the ways that mattered!

The Silver Birch Fiction awards, held the following day on Thursday, May 22nd at Harbourfront, were glorious.  To begin with, everyone was dressed for cool weather and so the awards ceremony was a pleasure to sit through.  As the day progressed, the clouds drifted away and the air warmed so that, by 11 o’clock people were peeling off coats and sweaters and turning their faces to the sun.  The awards ceremony was wonderful!  Students greeted the authors with the kind of screams normally reserved for rock stars.  A number of the authors were visibly overwhelmed by their reception!
It was a pleasure to hear the authors’ words, particularly Deborah Ellis’ stated conviction that books can be powerful instruments of change, and David Jones’ delightfully self-deprecating ruminations about the struggle that writers often face in getting their words satisfactorily onto paper.  Linda DeMeulemeester’s book The Secret of Grim Hill won this year’s Silver Birch prize, much to the delight of her very vocal fans!  Pigboy, by Vicki Grant, and Never to be Told, by Becky Citra, were named Silver Birch Fiction Honour Books.
After the awards ceremony, students lined up to meet the authors and get autographs, played a variety of games of skills, attended workshops and presentations, and visited a tall ship tied up at the dock.  My young partner and I went to Melanie Jackson’s seminar on writing mysteries, and had a look at some of the animals brought to the festival by the Metro Toronto Zoo.  But the best moment for me occurred on the subway during our trip back to Fern when I looked around and realized that almost all of my young charges had their nose in a Silver Birch nominated book!
FernFolio Editor